The alternative to the NAP is a state where you have separation of powers, laws are made by people you voted for and you get a fair trial before being punished. In NAP-land, you don't have these basic protections so you suffer the abuse that they were designed to prevent.

First, there aren't many people who could write that with a straight face. If you're one of them, I'm not sure whether to feel depressed or take pity on you. In practice, "separation of powers" means that the government is divided into warring political factions and everyone else is caught up in the cross-fire. Laws are made by people you probably didn't vote for to serve vocal (and typically lucrative) special interests. If you're accused of a "crime", you may get a fair trial or you may not. Either way, the verdict will be based on your compliance with the written law rather than anything resembling justice, and the punishment is often out of proportion to even the made-up crime you were accused of, to better ensure compliance.

Second, in "NAP-land" you have not only real but maximum separation of powers, since there is no monopoly on defense. Arbitration and defense services are distributed through the market. There are no written laws to adhere to, made up by people you didn't vote for, just the self-evident and universal principle that if you want others to leave you alone, you have to be willing to do the same.

Finally, if you should happen to be accused of violating the NAP and punished without a fair trial, those who put you through a kangaroo court and punished you unjustly are not shielded from the consequences of their actions by the monopoly provider of defense services. Government courts have written rules and procedures, but there is no punishment for government officials for violating them. If you're lucky you may get an early release, maybe even a formal apology. In "NAP-land" you can seek redress against the private arbiters and enforcers who harmed you; they have no special protection.

You don't like the NAP. That's clear. But why? What does it matter to you? You don't like being restricted to non-aggression? You feel there are instances in which you should initiate force against others who have not caused you harm? You think NAP adherents should not be able to defend themselves?

Forget everything else; these are the questions anyone who opposes the NAP needs to answer.

The alternative to the NAP is the principle that some (or all) people should be able to initiate or escalate the use of force against non-aggressors while simultaneously being able to claim that a reprisal in kind by the victim would be unjustified.

If you oppose the NAP, please explain the rational basis by which you distinguish between those permitted to act aggressively and those prohibited from doing so.

The alternative to the NAP is a state where you have separation of powers, laws are made by people you voted for and you get a fair trial before being punished. In NAP-land, you don't have these basic protections so you suffer the abuse that they were designed to prevent.

It appears someone has read a history book. Thanks for getting that one for me. Let me add this. That in our country the public will is enacted but the rights of the minority are protected. These individual rights are universal rights which we believe should never be violated on the individual's account, regardless of the benefit to the public.

That's the real balance that should be being discussed, not NAP-land, foolish fantasies. You NAP-sters should go buy James Madison's collected works and read them.

I'll keep my politics out of your economics if you keep your economics out of my politics.

Why do I 'not like' the NAP, you ask? Because the NAP is used to preach some type of Libertarian utopia that has never been seen on land or sea or in the fossil record and upon cursory and deeper analysis to the society governed by NAP one (who is literate in civics) realizes how deranged and ridiculous it is as a sole governing and moral philosophy. That is why.

As far as I can tell, the only people in this thread who have claimed that NAP should be the "sole" moral philosophy are those who oppose it and those who fail to understand it. The rest of us recognize that non-aggression is merely the basis of any consistent, and just, moral code.

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And how do you have modern debt relationships without, yes, a monopoly of power that enforces the same rules and promotes a reasonably fair '3rd-party' that is relatively indifferent to the proceedings but is acting in the universally established methods and rules for governing said situation?

The "modern" derivatives market, which is completely unregulated, managed to create $600 trillion in liabilities with no governing authority whatsoever. I submit that as evidence of the possibility for debt relationships to exist without government monopolies.

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The world, actually the universe, exists in a constant state of flux. Things change and will forever always change as far as we know. Humanity can either react to the change (your seemingly preferred method), let’s call this the reactive approach. Or humanity can be proactive and governed by wisdom, that is by the people that have the foresight to see these things coming and can steer the civilization away from said catastrophes and toward higher states of existence.

The NAP does not prevent individuals, and society by extension, from being proactive, or from following the wise who see change coming. Though I can see how you may have gotten this impression by generalizing the views of some Libertarians. I'm just going to defend non-aggression here, not market anarchy.

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In terms of existential threats: presently we are seeing an economic meltdown that has the potential to be more disastrous than the Great Depression. We see an incredible escalation of NATO aggression against Russia that is rapidly heating up in the thermonuclear armament sphere. We have a worldwide decaying UK/US (‘special relationship’) empire that is frantically trying to maintain their oligarchical privilege (which all you are unknowingly defending with your crackpot ideology) and threatening a thermonuclear WWIII of mass extinction on the planet. And these are just some of our problems.

Frankly I assumed you would choose a more realistic threat than this. Do you recognize the irony that, thanks to a minor application of the NAP known as mutually-assured destruction, neither the US nor Russia will even remotely approach thermonuclear confrontation? Nuclear war is a complete canard. Neither Putin nor Obama are irrational actors. Not even Dick Cheney was insane enough to broach this.

The economic meltdown is a disaster, true, but it is a contrived disaster which is being deliberately exacerbated by the FED, just like the Great Depression. And, yes, the solution to this problem lies with the masses, with projects like Bitcoin and others. The solution to poor (or in this case malicious) leadership is not different leadership, it's less leadership.

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By saying that these problems should be left to “the people”, as such, is saying the emergent behavior of the people is to take action and if the society (“the people”) do not take action then they (“the people”) are to blame for their problems; this is the doctrine of “Collective Guilt” – and I must admit, it’s a brilliant way to try and shirk your responsibility.

Look, I have no responsibility to hand-hold every mouth-breathing moron into making the correct decisions in life. The most I can do is point out the correct path, and to insulate myself from the consequences of their not taking it. The choice is up to them.

You accuse adherents of non-aggression of protecting "oligarchs", and then promote this "heroic leader" garbage? You should consider yourself lucky if aristocrats choose to lead by example rather than simply marching the poor lemmings off to an early demise as they have done repeatedly throughout history. Is that the "responsibility" you think is being shirked?

And it's not "collective guilt" for individuals to be collectively responsible for their individual choices. It's just reality. If you want to change that reality, you won't do it through heroic republicanism and convoluted legalism. Clearly all that does is make us all collectively responsible for an ever-increasing prison population. You'll do it by promoting basic property rights, individual responsibility and non-aggression.

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We live in a world with thermonuclear weapons, with the technology to destroy us all, return to a new Dark Age or to usher in a new Renaissance all within our lifetimes. The choice is all yours; the defeat has the potential to be absolute, but so does the victory.

I'm glad you bring this up. Because I think it's also important to point out that we live in a world in which individuals can obtain thermonuclear weapons, and the technology to destroy us all.

As a result, I would proffer that the rational choice for those who wish to guide civilization away from ruin, would be to tone down the grandiose collectivist navel-gazing, and consider adopting a more strictly moral philosophy that accounts for this fact.

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In addition, your allusion to Occam is misguided, simply because something is complex doesn’t imply inconsistency.

I was alluding to Gödel.

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These are the types of fears inherent in the NAPtopians, that by somehow atomizing the society, which is the logical result of the NAP, then they will arrive at a place where moral decisions are no longer relevant and no longer required simply by virtue of their existence. The great burden of being human will be lifted from their shoulders. This is another allure of the NAP.

Yes, and the fact that you don't believe this is possible tells me that you don't fully understand the concept of non-aggression.

Furthermore, that you can only seem to define morality in terms of "justice", and justice in terms of "nebulous ethereal feelings", tells me that you don't really have any better alternative either.

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Was the mention of Hammurabi's Code some type of attempt at intellectual name dropping?

This was to give you a "right wing" option. Since I'm not up to snuff on neo-conservative political philosophy, unfortunately it was the best I could do.

Is there anyone who thinks the NAP would ever be freely adopted in an election as a replacement for democracy?

I assume you actually mean removing all taxes and allowing private firms to offer competing services to those the government provides? If it made it onto a ballot, I can see it passing pretty handily. Of course, it would never make it onto the ballot.

Is there anyone who thinks the NAP would ever be freely adopted in an election as a replacement for democracy?

I assume you actually mean removing all taxes and allowing private firms to offer competing services to those the government provides? If it made it onto a ballot, I can see it passing pretty handily. Of course, it would never make it onto the ballot.

You must live in a pretty fucked up place if a policy you believe that the majority of people want can't get voted on. Where are you from?

Is there anyone who thinks the NAP would ever be freely adopted in an election as a replacement for democracy?

I assume you actually mean removing all taxes and allowing private firms to offer competing services to those the government provides? If it made it onto a ballot, I can see it passing pretty handily. Of course, it would never make it onto the ballot.

You must live in a pretty fucked up place if a policy you believe that the majority of people want can't get voted on. Where are you from?

Good old U.S. of A. Land of drug prohibition that well over 50% of the populace disagrees with, a TSA that everyone hates, and numerous other unpopular laws. Proof positive that the "lesser of two evils" is still fckn' evil.

I eat a banana. Is that aggression? Well, not if it's *my* banana. Yes if it's your banana.

So you can't decide what is or isn't aggression until you first have a system of property rights. NAP simply says to respect those property rights.

This should make it uncontroversial. I mean, who argues for theft, fraud, or violence? But it doesn't do what those who argue for it thinks it does.

For example, does a NAP argue against the war in Iraq? Well, no, since NAP permits retaliatory force. There are no shortage of violent acts Saddam Hussein committed that the United States could retaliate for, such as the Al-Anfal Campaign. You need complex principles and arguments about international engagement and entanglement to get there.

Does a NAP argue against taxation for any reason? Well, no. The government may take its own property by force if needed, and laws determine what belongs to whom. Once a law is passed that taxes you, the tax amount is no longer your property. You need complex principles about the scope of laws and the just applicability of laws to get there.

So really NAP just says something we all agree with -- force is the last resort when someone doesn't do what they're supposed to do, and lying to get a thing of value is bad.

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Is there anyone who thinks the NAP would ever be freely adopted in an election as a replacement for democracy?

I assume you actually mean removing all taxes and allowing private firms to offer competing services to those the government provides? If it made it onto a ballot, I can see it passing pretty handily. Of course, it would never make it onto the ballot.

You must live in a pretty fucked up place if a policy you believe that the majority of people want can't get voted on. Where are you from?

Good old U.S. of A. Land of drug prohibition that well over 50% of the populace disagrees with, a TSA that everyone hates, and numerous other unpopular laws. Proof positive that the "lesser of two evils" is still fckn' evil.

Hmmm. There is a real America. Go out and try to get people to vote to change those things; it won't happen because Americans are violently anti-drug. Heck you guys even have towns where alcohol isn't allowed.

In this NAP-induced mindset, the public good is never considered, the survival of the society is never considered, the future projection of the society is never considered, the greater potential that can exist is never considered, the level of individual equality of the system is never considered, the external threats to the system cannot be addressed; and why when these ideologies have seized power they system collapses and destroys itself in short order. And, unfortunately, we are well on our way in this collapse for this very reason.

I've read your posts a few times by now. And, while I get that you are dissatisfied with the NAP, I still can't seem to determine the 'basis' of your complaint.You don't like the NAP. That's clear. But why? What does it matter to you? You don't like being restricted to non-aggression? You feel there are instances in which you should initiate force against others who have not caused you harm? You think NAP adherents should not be able to defend themselves? You think they should join you in aggressing against others? You think the NAP is inadequately equipped to protect individual freedoms, and you have a better method? Fine. Name some examples.

Why do I 'not like' the NAP, you ask? Because the NAP is used to preach some type of Libertarian utopia that has never been seen on land or sea or in the fossil record and upon cursory and deeper analysis to the society governed by NAP one (who is literate in civics) realizes how deranged and ridiculous it is as a sole governing and moral philosophy. That is why.

You mean like when the forefathers set out to found a nation that was ruled by its people rather than by some arbitrary oppressive royal regiem, a nation that hadn't even entered the imagination of anyone on earth? What idiots they must have been, since we certainly haven't got there yet?

I find your lack of imagination disturbing!

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Hmmm. There is a real America. Go out and try to get people to vote to change those things; it won't happen because Americans are violently anti-drug. Heck you guys even have towns where alcohol isn't allowed.

Do tell me, if you will, how I am supposed to get such measures on the ballot in the first place? Not every state has ballot initiatives. So in order to get those measures passed, I would need to get lawmakers elected that will pass them. The reason the government will not offer to its citizens the opportunity to dissolve it should be obvious, but I'll explain anyway.

Fist of all, the US government is not a direct democracy. It is a representative democracy. This means that the people don't make the decisions themselves, but rather, elect representatives to do the deciding. This is, of course, a paid position, the best part of which being that if you would like a raise, you can simply vote yourself one. Of course, you need to get most of the other representatives to agree with you that they would also like a raise, but that's usually not a problem. So, there's that. You would need to convince the representatives to vote themselves out of a job... not a likely proposition.

So on the one hand, it would never get on the ballot because it's not something the people would be given a direct choice about in the first place, and on the other, it would never get passed in Congress because the congresscritters would never fire themselves.

Hmmm. There is a real America. Go out and try to get people to vote to change those things; it won't happen because Americans are violently anti-drug. Heck you guys even have towns where alcohol isn't allowed.

Do tell me, if you will, how I am supposed to get such measures on the ballot in the first place? Not every state has ballot initiatives. So in order to get those measures passed, I would need to get lawmakers elected that will pass them. The reason the government will not offer to its citizens the opportunity to dissolve it should be obvious, but I'll explain anyway.

Fist of all, the US government is not a direct democracy. It is a representative democracy. This means that the people don't make the decisions themselves, but rather, elect representatives to do the deciding. This is, of course, a paid position, the best part of which being that if you would like a raise, you can simply vote yourself one. Of course, you need to get most of the other representatives to agree with you that they would also like a raise, but that's usually not a problem. So, there's that. You would need to convince the representatives to vote themselves out of a job... not a likely proposition.

So on the one hand, it would never get on the ballot because it's not something the people would be given a direct choice about in the first place, and on the other, it would never get passed in Congress because the congresscritters would never fire themselves.

If I recall correctly, when Obamacare came to the vote, the Democrats said "This is political suicide." and then proceeded to vote for it anyway. Come November 2010, they lost their seats.

So it appears that if you convince an American politician that something is right, they have no problem acting on it even if it means they "fire themselves."

Your real problem is that you can't convince people that you have a practical program that will benefit them.

If I recall correctly, when Obamacare came to the vote, the Democrats said "This is political suicide." and then proceeded to vote for it anyway. Come November 2010, they lost their seats.

So it appears that if you convince an American politician that something is right, they have no problem acting on it even if it means they "fire themselves."

Your real problem is that you can't convince people that you have a practical program that will benefit them.

I think you're stretching the definition of "people" a bit far when you include politicians in there, but I don't advocate voting as a way to get a non-violent society. that would be like fucking for celibacy. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Agorism.

If I recall correctly, when Obamacare came to the vote, the Democrats said "This is political suicide." and then proceeded to vote for it anyway. Come November 2010, they lost their seats.

So it appears that if you convince an American politician that something is right, they have no problem acting on it even if it means they "fire themselves."

Your real problem is that you can't convince people that you have a practical program that will benefit them.

I think you're stretching the definition of "people" a bit far when you include politicians in there, but I don't advocate voting as a way to get a non-violent society. that would be like fucking for celibacy. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Agorism.

I think you're stretching the definition of "people" a bit far when you include politicians in there, but I don't advocate voting as a way to get a non-violent society. that would be like fucking for celibacy. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Agorism.

For all the independent freedom you seek within your NAP model, you sure are stubborn in insisting that everyone adheres to it. Not only that, your model at the very least, depends on it. That's inherently contradictory for starters.

If I recall correctly, when Obamacare came to the vote, the Democrats said "This is political suicide." and then proceeded to vote for it anyway. Come November 2010, they lost their seats.

So it appears that if you convince an American politician that something is right, they have no problem acting on it even if it means they "fire themselves."

Your real problem is that you can't convince people that you have a practical program that will benefit them.

I think you're stretching the definition of "people" a bit far when you include politicians in there, but I don't advocate voting as a way to get a non-violent society. that would be like fucking for celibacy. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Agorism.

Good luck with that.

Thank you. I'm confident that the better system will win out in market competition.

I'd like to point out one more flaw in your statement re: politicians: It's one thing to take a chance that come next election cycle, the voters might pick someone else, and another thing entirely to willingly quit your cushy job. Not just quit it, but make the position itself disappear. an ousted representative can always run again later, but if the job isn't there to be had, you can't go back to it.

I eat a banana. Is that aggression? Well, not if it's *my* banana. Yes if it's your banana.

So you can't decide what is or isn't aggression until you first have a system of property rights. NAP simply says to respect those property rights.

This should make it uncontroversial. I mean, who argues for theft, fraud, or violence? But it doesn't do what those who argue for it thinks it does.

For example, does a NAP argue against the war in Iraq? Well, no, since NAP permits retaliatory force. There are no shortage of violent acts Saddam Hussein committed that the United States could retaliate for, such as the Al-Anfal Campaign. You need complex principles and arguments about international engagement and entanglement to get there.

Does a NAP argue against taxation for any reason? Well, no. The government may take its own property by force if needed, and laws determine what belongs to whom. Once a law is passed that taxes you, the tax amount is no longer your property. You need complex principles about the scope of laws and the just applicability of laws to get there.

So really NAP just says something we all agree with -- force is the last resort when someone doesn't do what they're supposed to do, and lying to get a thing of value is bad.

This covers the NAP in all its sophistry. Because to you (and well reasoned I might add) shows that the concept of property rights is a state-concept. Without a governing body then nothing is really yours or mine unless we can keep it by our own power. So to you NAP means one thing but to someone else NAP means another - which is exactly my primary point. That is, whenever you are dealing with a concept that is so seemingly simple, yet leads to so many different interpretations and conclusions by only a few steps out of the gate, then it is proven as a basically worthless concept that needs more analysis and more clarity - not more repetition.

I'll keep my politics out of your economics if you keep your economics out of my politics.